No Neutrals There (us Labor, Zionism, And The Struggle For Palestine)

The definitive history of the US labor movement’s complicity in Zionist settler colonialism, and a call for today’s labor militants to organize in solidarity with Palestinians.

US trade unionists are often told to keep quiet and remain neutral on Palestine because “Palestine has nothing to do with unions” and “weighing in” only distracts from struggles for better working conditions. 

No Neutrals There makes a timely and critical intervention against that pervasive sentiment by recounting the history of the US labor movement’s century-long involvement in the struggle for Palestine. Scholar Jeff Schuhrke convincingly demonstrates that unions in the United States have never been silent or neutral on the question of Palestine. In fact, they have played a key role—in the initial Zionist colonization of Palestine, the foundation of the Israeli state in 1948, supporting US foreign policy commitments to Israel, and the ongoing suppression of the Palestinian liberation movement.

In his compelling telling of this history, Schuhrke conclusively shows that US unions helped build and maintain the state of Israel, and also shines a light on important exceptions to this rule: instances of US labor solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle that point the way forward for today’s labor movement.

Introduction

Chapter 1: Laying the Foundations
Chapter 2: Holocaust and Nakba
Chapter 3: Bonding with Israel
Chapter 4: Strained Friendship
Chapter 5: Intifada
Chapter 6: Labor for Palestine
Conclusion

“Schuhrke’s unspooling of American unions’ international machinations is impressive and concise. No Neutrals There is a unique and revealing look at one facet of America’s deep relationship with Israel.“ 
—Publisher''s Weekly, Starred Review

"By assembling a record of misdirected solidarity — solidarity with the coloniser rather than the colonised — Schuhrke shows how betrayal can be organisational, structured, and bureaucratised...His book is both an indictment and a summons, calling on workers — and on all of us — to recognise that the struggle for Palestine is inseparable from the struggle for justice."
—Yahia Lababidi, The New Arab

"Finally, a book on the direct engagement of U.S. labor unions with the Israeli government, including huge investments of American worker pensions in Israeli bonds. This book exposes conflicts of interest and the tensions between the rank and file workers and the compromised Union bosses. Fresh material throughout about this continuing taboo subject." —Ralph Nader, CounterPunch

“Jeff Schuhrke repudiates the Zionism of AFL-CIO ''leaders,'' and argues that workers should support Palestinian efforts for liberation...This book is excellent, deserves wide attention, and this work, plus his Blue-Collar Empire, has put him in the top rank of today’s labor historians.”
—Kim Scipes, Countercurrents

"Schuhrke’s sweeping and accessible book offers a detailed history of U.S. labor’s century-long alliance with the Zionist movement and the State of Israel, examining the forces and developments that built and sustained that alliance as well as those that opposed it. This is a critical resource for organizers within both the U.S. labor and Palestine solidarity movements as they work to strengthen efforts to build an anti-militarist labor politics that can win justice for workers and oppressed people both at home and abroad."
—Derek Seidman, Truthout

“The book is incredibly timely a